16 comments

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  Cobb

  9 months ago

  It's not where you're at, it's where you're going. Consider that conservatives, like liberals, want the government to signal that the path towards their mutually exclusive destinations are real. Whether or not you are at your destination is irrelevant most people are nowhere near their destinations - enveloped in a welfare state where everybody gets free post-secondary education, or in a market economy where everybody gets minimally taxed or audited by the state - rather the distinction in aim is key. A true conservative votes to be rich because voting otherwise forecloses the possibility of anyone getting rich or the benefits of being rich. If a leftist would line up the rich to be shot and dismantle the engines of wealth creation, what would they do to me for the sake of their dreams of flattened equality? You see exactly what they do to Palin.
  
  The government spends money where it must, and when the national interest is threatened - ie those great machines which provide us the liberty we desire, then the nation acts in self-defense. If it was Lazard Freres or BCCI that was failing there would be no bailout. These are American investments and American interests. If we didn't buy them, China or some other foreign country might and that is a possibility we cannot abide. We are saving ourselves, as we should. This is not business as usual or any indication of a political agenda having to do with our choices as voting citizens in our usual partisan contests. Most Americans don't even understand what's going on, much less have our pecadilloes expressed.
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  blacksmythe

  9 months ago

  two points worth commenting on, but before that i wonder where you get your conception of "true conservatives" from.
  
  *in talking about how people think of the future when making voting decisions you invoke the distinction between retrospective and prospective voting. voters vote for the party who will best serve their interests going forward (as opposed to examining the record of the party in office and determining whether it worked for them). the research is old here, but there is no evidence that indicates that people vote looking forward. rather they vote looking backwards.
  
  so again, focusing on broke rather than wealthy conservatives, i ask "how is that working out for you?" they aren't voting for the republican party in this specific interest because they want to be rich--their real wages fell rather than increased during this period. there is something else going on. particularly because it isn't clear to me how the current manifestation of the GOP is conservative in the Burkean sense at the very least. i think the racial makeup of the party has something to do with it. but this only explains white republican support.
  
  *This is not an indication of a political agenda.
  Right. It's an INDICTMENT of a political agenda, more specifically the neoliberal agenda that posits that free markets best enhance liberty and free markets require a hands off approach from government. Broke conservatives who really do vote based on their pocketbook should consider another approach. Broke conservatives who vote based on the desire to maintain/save a dying (white) republic? I dont know what they should do. i wish they had a smarter candidate to choose from. voting for someone 893 out of 897 or whatever can't be that reassuring.
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  Cobb

  9 months ago

  Well, as one of the people who 'gets' Sarah Palin, I understand that section of America I call Plaid Flannel America in the same way I get how they see Hollywood as a corrupting influence. I understand how they resist and resent the premise that America is broke and needs fixing as well as I understand how they object to being viewed through the lens of sociologists. I think it is not only incorrect, but foolish in the extreme to elide all of those and many more distinctions into a big bucket of 'white privilege' as is going on with Tim Wise's viral email. But that's not something that can be taken back.
  
  To suggest that your guess as to what some theory of conservatism means without any consideration for how they live their conservatism appears to me to be nothing more than an excuse to stereotype - and man how those stereotypes have come to the front with the nomination of Palin. It's as if everybody except Conservatives feel it's their natural right to determine who Conservatives should nominate and why.
  
  If people look back in order to vote, then it's true that the Right looks back to Reagan vs Carter as the archtype of the politics of the age. Carter's continual support of the Palestinians at the expense of Israel looms in that equation as does the constant evocation of the continually growing legend of Reagan's legacy. The parallels between Palin and Margaret Thatcher have been echoed as well.
  
  Values voters, those motivated by an alignment of moral principles are more prevalent on the right than pragmatists. The Law and Order vote doesn't care how much money they make. The Americans who identify with soldiers and first responders aren't so receptive to questions like those raised by Reagan 'are you better off now than you were 4 years ago'? For them, it is attention to matters of propriety that are paramount. When Obama made disparaging comments about those who 'cling to guns and God' he put two strikes against himself on that matter.
  
  Even listening to Obama and McCain respond to the crisis on Wall Street lets you know that difference. Obama said that this is an example of the sort of things that make it harder for the little guy to get a decent job. McCain said that the titans of Wall Street betrayed the trust of the people. Republicans who don't have investments in Wall Street understand something about a betrayal of trust - that's not suppose to happen in an honest America. Plaid Flannel America works on poor but honest, hardworking and trustworthy, upright Christian morality and sacrifice for God and Country. That's not about money. Hollywood is about money.
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  aaron

  9 months ago

  Welcome back Team, been waiting for an update here for a minute. Good luck with the book.
  
  Cobb, seems like what you are saying is that people are voting their ideology. It's not really based on anything but the fact that Republicans SAY they are about Christian morality, God, and Country.
  
  
  Spence, I think we've had this discussion too. The same can be said about Lefties. Democrats really only SAY they are about whatever liberal ideas you want to ascribe them.
  
  There is value in having a position, believing in it and wanting to see it happen. But the realities are different. Neither candidate is "perfect left" or "perfect right," And it would be foolish to assume so, and make our decision based on that. Neither candidate will be able to execute a perfect left or right agenda, and to be honest I think if either people on the left or right got everything they wanted things would be better. If there truly was a Free Market, and everyone truly had equal opportunity to pull themselves up by their bootstraps, and trickle down economics worked and everyone was morale and abided by the law things would be great. And if every social program worked 100%, and government regulation was 100% effective in stopping abuses of power then things would be great too. But that isn't going to happen. And I'd rather have someone in the white house with a more nuanced position. Someone who doesn't believe he has all the answers, but has the right strategy.
  
  And maybe its just me but its abundantly clear that Obama is the best choice that. Take Obama out of the picture. Isn't a president that takes all ideas into account to come up with the best solution exponentially better than a president who takes an ideological stand and doesn't waiver?
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  blacksmythe

  9 months ago

  So you move from arguing that conservatives vote conservative because they want to be rich to they vote conservatives because they believe in certain values. Money doesn't matter to them much. And at the same time you argue against stereotyping?
  
  Your posts taken together read as if you are amassing ideas in order to defend or promote a material interest, and whatever idea sticks is the idea you'll end on. Which is all to the good...but don't play like you're doing something different.
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  The Urban Scientist

  9 months ago

  you are so right - about many conservative having no 'real' reason or incentive to be or the greater likelihood of future hardships, even when you do work hard and do the right thing most of the time -- that is just not fair.
  
  most people like the idea of communities working together, pulling in the riegns, helping each other through harships and good times. this sounds pretty nice, right? but when someone recommends a formal community-work philosophy - then people get nervous and call it socialism. it is, a little bit. most churches and community organizations have very socialist values. and why is that necessarily a bad thing?
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  KevinT

  9 months ago

  We like the idea of working together voluntarily, but despise the idea of being forced to do so. Bribing us to work together by handing out subsidies or other incentives makes us suspicious. That's the big difference. Nobody forces us to join a church or get involved in our communities; if we want to be surly unchurched loners, that's our privilege, no?
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  blacksmythe

  9 months ago

  but there are only certain cases in which people despise the force you refer to, right? it isn't universal by any stretch of the imagination. there are individuals who are "unchurched loners" in every circumstance. but most of us pick and choose our moments.
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  Cobb

  9 months ago

  let 'true conservative' = 'fiscal conservative' meaning free market, limited government anti-commie. let 'values conservative' = 'social conservative' meaning God, Country Community, meaning family values, pro-life, pro-gun. They're all elements of the same party and Palin brings something to the table for both. For the fiscal conservative she brings the *real work* of having gotten a huge budget surplus for her state and beaten back corruptions against the GOP party bosses. For the social conservatives she is the mom and the existential role model.
  
  There's no backtracking or inconsistency here. She's the Republican choice and that includes those two sorts of conservatives and others as well.
  
  I don't see how anyone who claims to value shared responsibility, community and life can object to a grass roots politician like Palin who started at the PTA and ended up at the statehouse.
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  blacksmythe

  9 months ago

  This is what you wrote to one of your younger fraternity brothers:
  ....
  
  With any luck, young man, you will soon be working for one of America's better institutions. What you will learn there is how to build and or maintain some part of this great civilization. You will be paid greatly, more than most. And you will come to appreciate exactly how complex and sophisticated are the disciplines required for all that to work. You will also, eventually recognize how important it is for ordinary people to respect your skill and accomplishment for doing that special thing you will do, which obviously required investments of time, effort and money on your behalf. Whether you are an art historian, engineer, attorney, business manager, banker, doctor - whatever. You will approach the state of the art in a field that inherits hundreds of years of evolution.
  
  Populists don't care about that, they don't see the strength of a nation in its ability to hold the ceiling high, rather its ability to keep the floor warm. They will demonize you, your training, your intellect, your institution and the products of your labor merely to outnumber you and dismiss all that you do. They will insinuate that any and every sophisticated thing you do is worthless unless is makes Joe Blow on the floor warm and comfortable.
  
  They will do so in defiance of logic, and even the laws of supply and demand. They will demand for Joe, even if he wants what you make. And if Joe gets too uppity, they will demonize him too. They'll say Joe's SUV is evil, they'll say Joe's job is not a good job unless it's a 'green' job. And the populist will always argue that there are more of them than you, and that the majority should always rule. It leads to mobocracy because all of the grasshoppers will live for the summer, while ants like you will work hard all year for the winter.
  
  Since when has the United States lacked in quality education? People from all over the world come to our universities? Since when has America lacked health care? The populist wants to continually raise the minimum wage for the masses without requiring that the masses make efforts. And they always want to take it out of the pockets of those who do make the efforts.
  
  The easiest way to make the floor warm in this big tent is to collapse the roof. You don't want to see what it's like when lions and tigers and bears, trapeze artists and tightrope walkers, acrobats and fire eaters are all in the same cramped space with the clowns. You need people to raise the roof and give all of us air to breathe. That requires, as any graduate student should know, a recognition of the extraordinary efforts of the few, of the elites, of the aristocracy of merit.
  
  What populists seek to destroy is the delicate integrity of the interdependence of the talented with the misfortunate. They will have the masses believe that to be an elite is to be a criminal. That the elites are all, always up to no good and that they must be brought down low. Every corporation is Enron. Every politician is Nixon. Every rich man is Scrooge.
  
  They will ignore your respect and concern for the common man. They will say that your ambition can be nothing but selfish. They will say that people like you, because you have bothered to distinguish yourself, operate out of pure hatred and disgust for people who don't. They say your dreams are dishonest because they're not everybody's dreams. They will say your work is conniving because you use insider information that everyone can't immediately understand. They will say that you are sinister and can't be trusted, and they will demand that you explain your every move.
  
  Populism is the National Enquirer version of democracy. It's a big lie, and you know it.
  ......
  
  I don't object to Palin's selection. I didn't select her. I do not claim the party that did. YOU claim that. Now if you don't think the United States is a particularly complex institution that requires a certain type of intellect and skillset, then you shouldn't be upset. There is no contradiction.
  
  And hell, there is a great deal of time between today and....the 27 or so days ago that you wrote the above note. Things could've changed....
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  Cobb

  9 months ago

  True or false, the nomination of Sarah Palin has changed McCain into a populist candidate.
  
  True or false. The nomination of Joseph Biden has changed Obama into an establishment candidate.
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  blacksmythe

  9 months ago

  neither question is material.
  
  the material question is, have albert gore and richard cheney changed the prerequisites of the vice-presidency? if so, what you wrote to your younger fraternity brother stands. if not?
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  KevinT

  9 months ago

  Cobb probably gets his sense of "plaid shirt Republicans" from people like me. I was born Latino, but since I was brought up as a service brat I don't react well to the kind of ethnic balkanizing being perpetrated by MALDEF/La Raza on the left or the Cuban-Americans on the right. Frankly, one of the reasons I was glad to see Palin on the ticket is that McCain has spent most of his career sticking his thumb in the eye of people like me, who tend to vote Republican more for ideological reasons than for any direct economic benefit we might derive. Palin is a signal that McCain isn't in it for the long run and is just holding a place for the next generation: Palin, Jindal, Pawlenty and the rest of the fiscal hawks whose roots are in the states and not Washington.
  
  In fact, the economic benefits you describe are condemned as rent-seeking by me and my kind, and are part of the populist fury directed against the bailout.
  
  The United States is complex, yes. The notion that any one man can hope to move it in any particular direction without persuading/coercing Congress to go along is a dangerous illusion, and the current occupant is a good example of this. His greatest political mistakes have come when he's forgotten this.
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  blacksmythe

  9 months ago

  Kevin which activities would you describe as rent-seeking?
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  Kevin

  9 months ago

  I think the Microsoft anti-trust suit was a good example of it - using political/judicial pressure on a competitor instead of beating them in the marketplace. Rich "farmers" who make tons of money of farm subsidies (Ted Turner, among others) are another example. Closer to your manor, colleges who constantly cry for more student aid even as they jack up their tuition fees to coddle well-heeled freshmen.
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  KevinT

  9 months ago

  If it's for anything short of war or a natural disaster, we're going to get stiff-necked about it, and no, of course it's not universal. I'm just saying that on the social conservative side of the fence, people would rather not be told "You HAVE to do this" by the government. Preachers and priests and rabbis we expect that from, because they're all about the moral suasion and they're speaking for G*d. At least we believe they are. The government, though, they're not speaking for G*d and thanks to all the lobbyists sometimes they'r e not speaking for Caesar either.
  
  I could lump the mandatory community service requirement of some school systems into this, but I don't want to be ranting all night.
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